Dulles, Allan Welsh.

Dulles, Allan Welsh, born on 07-04-1893 in Watertown, New York, one of five children of Presbyterian minister Allen Macy Dulles, and his wife, Edith (born Foster) Dulles. He was five years younger than his brother, John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower‘s  secretary of state and chairman and senior partner of Sullivan & Cromwell, and two years older than his sister, diplomat, Eleanor Lansing Dulles. His maternal grandfather, John W. Foster, was secretary of state under Benjamin Harrison, while his uncle by marriage, Robert Lansing was secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson. Dulles was uncle to Catholic convert Avery Dulles, a Jesuit priest and cardinal of the Catholic Church, who taught theology at Fordham University from 1988 to 2008.

Allan was the first civilian and the longest serving Director of Central Intelligence and a member of the Warren Commission. Allen Dulles graduated from Princeton University, and in 1916 entered the diplomatic service. After Allen Dulles graduated from college he become a diplomat and during his posts in different European countries started to gather intelligence information during the First World War, he was actually working as an intelligence officer. As legal adviser to the delegation at the League of Nations on arms limitation where had the opportunity to meet with Adolf Hitler (did you know), Benito Mussolini, Maksim Litvinov

   , a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat and the leaders of Britain and France, Edouard Daladier.

Litvinov who died in Moscow, age 75, in 31-12-1951, was succeeded by Viacheslav Molotov. Transferred to, Bern, Swiss, Dulles supplied his government with much sensitive information about Nazi Germany. After Pearl Harbour , 07-12-1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt   decided to create an Intelligence group to combat the Japanese threat and set William Joesph Donovan a Wall Street lawyer, for the job. Donovan worked with Allen Dulles, a Wall Street Lawyer too. Dulles worked on intelligence regarding German plans and activities. Dulles established wide contacts with German émigrés, resistance figures, and anti-Nazi intelligence officers (who linked him, through Hans Bernd Gisevius,  Gisevius died age 69, on 23-02-1974, to the tiny but daring opposition to Hitler in Germany itself). Although Washington barred Dulles from making firm commitments to the plotters of the 20 July 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, Oberst der Kavallerie, Graf Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg the conspirators nonetheless gave him reports on developments in Germany, including sketchy but accurate warnings of plans for Hitler’s V-1 and V-2 missiles,   Dulles also received valuable information from Fritz Kolbe, a German diplomat and a foe of the Nazis. Kolbe supplied secret documents regarding active German spies and plans regarding the Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter. Kolbe died of cancer, age 70, on 16-02-1971, in Bern, Swiss.  In 1945, he played a central role in negotiations leading to the unconditional capitulation of German troops in Italy. In February of 1945, SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff contacted Allen Dulles in Switzerland to arrange the early surrender of all axis forces in Italy. This highly secretive surrender of Italy was known as Operation Sunrise. The negotiation was conducted between Allen Dulles, former CIA director, and SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff. At the time Dulles was the OSS officer in Zurich, Switzerland; Wolff was located in northern Italy, making contact fairly easy.  SS Obergruppenführer, Karl Wolff

 established contact with Allen Dulles and the O.S.S.  through Italian and Swiss intermediaries. His negotiations behind Hitler’s back in Zurich led to the early surrender of German forces in Italy. For his services he was not tried at Nuremberg and appeared as a willing prosecution witness. After the war in Europe, Dulles served for six months as the OSS Berlin station chief.

  Kennedy presents the National Security Medal to Dulles, 28-11-1961.

Allan Dulles died at the age of 75 of pneumonia, on 29-01-1969 in Washington DC and is buried with his wife Clover, born Todd, who died age 80, on 15-04-1974, on the Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore. On this cemetery is also buried the assassin of President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865).

        

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